It’s hard to beat the numbers, but sometimes those statistics are filthy liars.
On a night when Alabama seemed to play 10 yards off every receiver, let LSU fall forward three yards on every play, and let the Bayou Bengals run dozens more offensive plays… Alabama stood firm when it mattered.
Bama trailed for 128 seconds, yet the LSU offense seemed to be inevitable. Yet the defense was the star of the show
Luke Metz
Gotta give a proper image credit here: this one was found in the dictionary next to the word “baller.” The interception was a great play, the 28-yard return was pivotal in setting the offense up at midfield when field position was hard to come by, and six of his 11 tackles were solo.
For the most part, LSU skill players were owning us on missed tackles and falling forward for another three yards every time. Metz was clutch, and it’s clear that when the defensive line is healthy and can keep him clean to move, he is a menace.
The Bama TE Room
Kaleb Edwards and Josh Ford each had TDs, but they (along with Marshall Pritchett) are the pistons that crank the engine. The more successful they are at complementing both the wideouts and the offensive line, the better the offense hums.
The sooner Ryan Grubb remembers this, the further we will go.
Kane Wommack’s Dance Party
I don’t know, man. You’re like a grown adult and everything. But when you take an opponent converting 81% on 4th down and hold them to 0-for-4, you can whip and nae-nae all you want.
We joked for three quarters about “bend over but don’t break” defense, and how LSU’s mastery at moving the chains made them Thanos-class inevitable. LSU had 27 first downs to Bama’s 13. Yet the Tide shut down the Tigers exactly when it was needed.
Keep on steppin’, Kane.
Hidden turnovers
Look at those stats, and LSU has a massive advantage in the aforementioned first downs, total plays, passing yards and time of possession. Surely those meager turnovers (the Metz pick of Sam Leavitt and a muffed punt) wouldn’t flip to a three-score beatdown?
The box score says two turnovers: we say seven. Add in the four 4th-down stops and a missed field goal, and it was a case of everything going LSU’s way on every drive until very suddenly it did not.
Verdict: a sweaty afternoon in Baton Rouge turned into a great night for the Tide in Deaf Valley. And Lane Kiffin is hearing it.
CKD needs to assign a get back coach for Kane before he gets flagged for running onto the field after big plays.
CKD grabbed him one time and told him to get the fuck back.
He jerked his ass back onto the sideline last night
Luke Metz is the best linebacker in the SEC and maybe the country.
#Metz4Prez
This game was a master class in exploiting the mental weakness of the opponent.
Lane and Leavitt are many things but patient isnt one of them. They want juice and splash and big plays. The LSU defense wants to blow ppl up and make big splashy stops.
The Bama coaches made them take the short play, read their keys, and make clean tackles. Eventually their brains craving for that dopamine hit broke contain and they starting making stupid decisions and giving up big plays
I’ve been saying this about LSU since Saban left, LSU recruits players and can out athlete teams, Saban and now DeBoer, recruit teams.
In the NIL era, roster construction is everything. X’s and O’s, Jimmies and Joes, and how much you owe.
I’m so tired of clowns saying that he’s in his first year.
My brother in Christ, he left one SEC program to go to another. He knows what the SEC is like.
LSU has been in a top 10 recruiting school for basically my entire lifetime. He has the nation’s most expensive roster. He had the country’s number one portal class. It’s his system. His offense. A hell of a lot of his players.
There is no year one, absent some very bizarre circumstances like Alabama, where you get a true Year Zero.
This has been a monumental underachievement from start to finish — and it is very much on the table that LSU can still lose five games, with a trip to Knoxville and hosting Texas
Nothing good ever came of a 10rc win.
In the Preview, I noted that they led the country in big plays as a percentage of offense, and were second overall in raw explosive plays.
They’ve done that mainly by taking these seven and 8 yard plays, finding a lot of space, and then exploding for big gains. I think they got very frustrated. They could not do it in the red zone last night. They were thinking because Alabama was giving them space between the 30s, but the defense could not or did not tighten up in the red zone. They were very frustrated.
For Alabama’s O, it was a matter of taking what the defense gave them. There was a world of difference between second half Russell and first half Russell, for instance.
You have enough six and 7 yard throws to the tight end, you’re going to have the 30 yard throws to Lottie or Ced or Bobblehead.
Even grubby was patient, continuing to call the run, even though they were only getting about 3 yards a play. But that’s what you have to do. You have to take the three or 4 yards given to you so that you can get the 10 and 12 yards later in the game.
It’s not his preferred style of play, but dammit, it just wins games.
it was a patient, mature game. And people can make much of the defense giving up so many yards that they want to, but that was the game plan.
Lane motherfucking Kiffin just got flat outcoached. If there was anything that coaching staff prayed for before the game started it was a game in Baton Rouge, where Sam Leavitt throws the ball 50 times — like he did last night.
Did you notice we hit the little TE flat screen to beat their 1st blitz on the 1st drive? We gave them a similar look except we faked it and hit CD Morgan for the TD on a switch release. What a nasty setup. We disrupted the coverage mentally by faking a play that already beat them and physically disrupted the coverage with a little rub on the switch
I saw that this morning when I was re-watching the game
I don’t know, maybe it’s me but I truly could give a shit about stats, if defense gave up a ton of yards, etc., so long as we win. Sure, I would love to have the 2016 Bama defense every year but more importantly, I want wins. (And I want Kiffin/LSU to be humiliated so double yay.)
SEC Shorts should do a “Lane goes to 4th-downs Anonymous” sketch.
Wow. So Terrance Green matters, huh?
good result. maybe, just maybe, i was to harsh with the curry 2.0 stuff about KDB. maybe not; curry clobbered LSU too. hope for the best.
Someone has the username KDBisShula 😂
Oh no, one of the mikes! a step below curry…I guess dubose did win the SEC one season tho that is generally ascribed to Bruce arians/Shaun alexander.
https://x.com/JoeTipton/status/2119504814216298616?a=ikWuZLsy2zTGri1P9L4&s=19
I don’t know how to embed a tweet.
Yep. Already got it. It’s a lead story for tomorrow. Thanks!
I voted “Other”
D-Line
Notice with Green Back, they couldn’t double Devan…and he had two sacks.
it was the exact shit I wrote about on Saturday morning. You lose your NT, you are also losing your pass rush. It was a VERY different Bama than the one we saw the last two weeks.
I gotta be honest. I didn’t see this coming. I still don’t trust it. I’ve been hurt.
got to give it to the staff this time, they owned their counterparts.
hard to argue with the final score but I’m not sure I’ll ever accept bend don’t break philosophy. Let me ask for fun, if we play that game 10 times, how many are we winning?
We’re winning 10. Nothing would change about Lane’s idiotic decision making. He goes full retard in big games and that’s never going to change.
Two notes. The TE room- This was the adjustment we needed during the Georgia game that should have allowed us to beat Tennessee as well. I give Grubb no flowers in a lesson that took three games to learn.
Second- Everyone keeps hyping the LSU TOP and yard total, but when you get the ball multiple times on the opponent’s side of the 50, it’s hard to build either stat, especially when it takes 2 plays to score a TD.
That being said, Wommack’s Defense has effectively held every offence they have faced (excluding the FSU game) around half their season points average, and that is facing 3-4 top 20 offenses. Anyone thinking Wommack is the issue needs to look at what is going on in Oxford and remember that guy got a title with far more talent that he got less out of. Can you imagine Will Anderson on this team?
Terminator and Thompkins?